---

Ms Munn: Protective Headgear for Young Cyclists Bill.

David Cairns: Yes, that was the title. It has now been shunted to 18 June, when my ten-minute Bill is scheduled for Second Reading. As I understand it, the Protective Headgear for Young Cyclists Bill will take precedence because it is a ballot measure. My Bill is currently scheduled to be considered first on 18 June. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle is disappointed, and I was keen to support his Bill. It will now be considered before my Bill on 18 June. My hon. Friend the Member for Hendon is therefore right to say that there is a set timetable that is not arbitrary.

The Government are not trying to pad matters out until the Bill falls off the end of the cliff. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon need only look through the Order Paper, which sets out all the Fridays when such matters will be debated. I am not trying to ensure that the Bill does not succeed through some sort of procedural mechanism. I should be happy to vote against it, not because I oppose a referendum—I am not sure whether I have made it clear that I support a referendum—but because I oppose the Bill.

Mr. Chope: The hon. Gentleman says that he wants an opportunity to vote against the Bill, but he has been speaking for half an hour. Does he realise that if the Minister is to have time to respond to the pertinent questions that my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) asked, he should sit down soon? Or is his motive to talk out the Bill?

David Cairns: It will take me a few moments to deal with that question. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon said earlier, the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon took an hour and 10 minutes, not at the beginning of the day but halfway through the morning, to make his case. The right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst, on one of his periodic visits to the Chamber, which seem to last approximately 10 minutes before he leaves again, leapt to his feet and accused my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon of committing an outrage. He asked how my hon. Friend dared criticise the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon for speaking for an hour and 10 minutes and whether he realised that the material was important and salient. I pointed out that the right hon. Gentleman had not been present for most of the speech. None the less, I agreed that it was a good speech and an hour and 10 minutes well spent.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will now start to talk about the Bill.

David Cairns: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I have been striving to do so. I was about to speak about the Bill when I was interrupted from the Opposition Front Bench. Let us revert to the measure.

Mr. Dismore: Will my hon. Friend give way?

David Cairns: I shall not on this occasion. If my hon. Friend lets me make a little progress, I shall happily give
 
23 Apr 2004 : Column 596
 
way later. I want to continue my analysis of the measure because, as I have already said, I would be the first speaker to conduct such an analysis.

Let us consider the second flaw in the series of flaws that means that the Bill cannot be supported—the referendum question. When the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon referred to the 34 referendums that have already taken place, I asked him how many had the question decided by an Act of Parliament. I genuinely did not know the answer. I was not a Member of Parliament when the Bill that dealt with the Greater London authority was considered and I do not know whether the referendum question was included in the measure. I am happy to give way to any hon. Member who can tell me whether it is custom and practice to specify the question in the Bill.

Clause 3(6) states:

"The Electoral Commission shall publish a report setting out when and how the referendum shall be conducted",

but that presumably does not include the wording of the question, because that is on the face of the Bill. That being the case, the Electoral Commission would have no say in that matter and would simply have to implement the measure.

Mr. Lazarowicz : We are now coming to the crux of the Bill, namely, the wording of the question. My hon. Friend makes a relevant point about the Electoral Commission. Does he accept that the way in which a question is phrased can often determine the type of response that it gets? The question in the Bill asks:

"Should the United Kingdom be bound by the Treaty establishing a Constitution for the European Union?"

Does not that give a hint, at least, of the Conservatives' view that the treaty in some way restricts the sovereign rights of the UK? Is not the question itself designed to get a "no" answer?

David Cairns: I fear that it is. My hon. Friend's hackles were raised in the same way as mine were when I first read the question. I think that he might have been taking some refreshment after his magnificent speech in the earlier debate when I made precisely that point to the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon. I scored a bull's eye when I did so, because as soon as I had made the point, the hon. Gentleman said, "Fair enough; let's amend it in Committee." It was hardly the most robust defence of his own Bill to say, "Well, okay, if you think it's a bit biased we'll discuss it in Committee."

I want to explore the general principle of whether we should put the wording of a referendum question into primary legislation. If someone can convince me that that is where it belongs, and that that is what we have done for the last 36 referendums, my fears would be calmed. Perhaps the Minister can help me here; he used to be in the Home Office. No one has yet explained to me why this wording needs to be in the Bill.

Mr. Dismore: Did not the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon give the game away when he said that this was exactly the same Bill as the one that was promoted by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field)? Is he not simply using the Bill as a vehicle to
 
23 Apr 2004 : Column 597
 
expound his anti-European views, rather than seriously intending to legislate? If he had had serious intentions, he would have made sure that his Bill was in order.

David Cairns: I agree with my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon is a parliamentarian of long standing. Indeed, he was the author of the Maples memorandum—if I am allowed to call it that—which Labour Members thoroughly enjoyed reading. I think that at one stage I knew every word of it and was able to campaign on it during the 1997 election. He had a brilliant forensic mind when he was setting out the flaws of the then Conservative Government. Unfortunately, it seems to have deserted him when he was drafting this Bill.

If the hon. Gentleman has lifted a previous, flawed Bill without studying it in any great depth and put his own name to it, that would be a tiny bit irresponsible. Hon. Members tell me that that has been done in the past, but I cannot imagine that it is a common occurrence. I certainly would not want to put my name on a Bill as flawed as this one. I know that this might sound self-aggrandising, but my private Member's Bill went through all its parliamentary stages in both Houses last year without the need for any amendments.

Mr. Dismore: It seems to be a Tory party tactic to do this. The Retirement Income Reform Bill and the Food Labelling Bill have been brought back time and again without any of their flaws being corrected, and the result is the same every time: they get thrown out.

David Cairns: My hon. Friend is a more assiduous attender here on a Friday than I am, and I bow to his superior knowledge of these matters. It is a terrible shame if that is what is happening, and if this is part of a pattern. I thought that this was just a random occurrence, but it is very sad if my hon. Friend is right.

There are two issues relating to the wording of the question. The first is the principle of whether a referendum question should be included in a Bill, irrespective of what it says. Hon. Members will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that, as and when we have a referendum on the euro, the question will be framed by the Electoral Commission or some sort of independent body. I might be wrong; the Government might be intending to frame the question themselves—I am not entirely sure. However, if we were to give the Electoral Commission a significant role in the conduct of this referendum, excluding it as a point of principle from having anything to do with the framing of the question—after all, what is a referendum if it is not a question?—seems to be the major flaw in the Bill. I might have been more inclined to support it, the other flaws notwithstanding, had it said, "The question to be asked in the referendum shall be decided by the Electoral Commission and ratified by Parliament." However, it says:

"The question to be asked in a referendum held in pursuance of section 1 is"—

and it goes on to outline a question.

I want to talk about the question—the words themselves—in a moment, but we must not pass on to that discussion without discussing the principle of fettering the Electoral Commission in its rightly
 
23 Apr 2004 : Column 598
 
ordained role. This Parliament gave the commission powers so that there would be no hint of party political bias in any such sensitive matter to do with elections or referendums. It would have had a lot to say about how the 1975 referendum was conducted—it was clearly one-sided in terms of the money spent and the publicity given to the "Yes" campaign. [Interruption.] I am far too young to remember it; I have read about it in the history books.

The commission exists to ensure that no hint of bias or one-sidedness can creep into any part of the electoral process, including a referendum. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon recognises that, because he would give the Electoral Commission a key role in publishing

"a report setting out when and how the referendum shall be conducted".

However, the commission may decide when the referendum is to be conducted provided that it is six months after the date of the adoption, whatever that is, of the constitutional treaty. The commission would be told, "You can oversee the referendum, but you can't decide what the question is because we have already decided it. You can't decide on the timing of the thing because we have already decided it." The Bill also refers to the referendum being held on a public holiday, so the commission would also be told, "You can decide when it is, provided that it is on a public holiday six months after the adoption of a treaty." The commission would be outraged to be so fettered.

---